Energy giant BP's competition to promote STEM skills fires up students to
invent power-saving aluminium production

Three university students will be heading off on what BP bills as the “Ultimate Field Trip” to Alaska and Chicago after triumphing in a competition run by the energy company to promote science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills.

The “I Challenge You to a Joule” team from Oxford University came out ahead of 120 others in the contest ways that energy companies can reduce the amount of power they use in their operations.

The solution, which could fit in anywhere from the drill bit to point of sale to consumers, also had to have the potential to scale across the industry and be able to be implemented by 2025.

The team – made up of Christopher Clay, Talbot Kingsbury and Jan Paszkiewicz – came up with an elegant solution to the problem that involved harnessing the energy from waste gas that is a by-product of drilling for hydrocarbons to power the production of aluminium.

Aluminium is one of the most abundant metals on Earth but it is expensive mainly because of the large amount of energy used by the electrolysis process used to create the pure metal.

The team proposed using the waste gas to power on-site aluminium electrolysis, rather than just burning it off – or “flaring” it – as seen on drilling rigs. This would cut the cost of producing the metal and also eased the demand on local energy grids.

I Challenge You to A Joule team member Christopher Clay said: “It’s amazing to win this year’s Ultimate Field Trip, it’s such an achievement. I am really proud of our team’s efforts. I would not hesitate in recommending the experience to other students, it’s very rewarding. It’s not easy, but all the hard work is worth it.”

BP’s competition aims to promote STEM skills by offering the field trip which allows young people to get a taste of what the company does in site. The contest is now in its fifth year and 3,264 students from UK universities have entered. The competition is also staged in

Suzy Style, BP’s head of graduate resourcing UK, said: “It has been another terrific year for the Ultimate Field Trip – saw the addition of two further countries, Angola and Canada, as the Ultimate Field Trip competition expanded to cover five locations around the world.

“[The UK winners] will join Ultimate Field Trip winners from the US, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and Angola to take part in a really exciting two week field trip to Alaska and Chicago.”

The winners will visit BP operations including the company’s Alaska installations, its dealing floor and a refinery.

The company is one of the leading graduate recruiters, taking on 200 graduates a year in the UK, and nearly 1,000 worldwide. The company also offers 130 summer and one-year paid internships in the UK.